Author
Topic: Official FOOTBALL Thread (Read 147859 times)

All right, we have a league and it's off to a roaring start. Masa takes the early lead with his French offensive.

So, who is Eunbyul/EunByoo? I imagine it's the same person, and I'd prefer for you to pick a single team for the league. Please identify and reply, or I'll just remove the team you added later.

--

A few reminders to anyone playing Fantasy Football because the Rules page is frankly a little confusing:

a MATCHDAY means one round of everyone playing, not a single day of matches. For example, the first Matchday is June 10 until June 14. This means that for the group stage you can do a transfer (or several, if you use your wildcard or want to spend some points) only after every team has played once (and then twice, and thrice).

However, you can change your captain daily (and I mean a regular day here), between the last match of the day and the first match of the next day. This means you can potentially try out four different captains per each round of the group stage. Remember that you can't go back to your previous captain, therefore losing the double points.

You also have substitutions, so do them when required, each day if needed. I'm not even sure when they're automatic, the rules page is using the term "matchday" in a weird way again. I imagine after each day, if someone you fielded didn't play, they'll be subbed out and replaced by someone on your bench. Remember that whoever you sub out loses all of their points.

Wasn't impressed by the opening match yesterday. France looked poor the entire time, are blessed to have certain players, and didn't deserve a win. The French fans whistling the Romanians from the first was also pathetic. I want to see France exit early just because of that.

^ I feel for you, but why have you benched Giroud and Xhaka? You're aware that players who have already played and then put on the bench will have their score nulled?

My players have scored 6-2-2-2-2 so far, which is a pretty damn shaky start. I'm ever so slightly mad at myself for picking English players (generally not a good idea at the world/euro stage) but guess I believed the Alli-Kane hype (and to be fair, both had several good chances to score points). Of course, there's two more matchdays for them. I also went for Griezmann instead of Giroud, not that Giroud scored super high but 5 is better than 2 for sure. Rodriguez at least came through with a clean sheet.

It's in the notes at the start of this page, it's all very confusing if you don't remember all the rules from previous years...

Yeah, not going too great. Today was fine tho, Subasic, Boateng and Kroos came through with solid sixes. But all of my forwards failed during matchday 1. At least I forgot to switch captain from Rodriguez to Müller.

I think I will stick with Rodriguez, as I'm not too confident in anyone in my team yet to play scoring more than six points.

--

Right, about the substitutions again. I noticed some your teams have left people just sitting on the bench even though their teams are playing. And some of you have moved people that have scored (a reasonable amount of) points to the bench. This is not how you should do it, people on the bench will not contribute their points to the Matchday totals. This might be due to y'all lack of interest in tweaking, but I'll still re-iterate.

As a practical example of subs, the above has been my lineup from the start. I left the guys that play last on the bench, and I'll sub them in only right before they play IF needed. For example, Subasic scored 6 points, so I probably won't sub Rui Patricio in, because a goalie scoring more than 6 points is rare enough, and just one conceded goal would take him down to 2 points.

However, I will for sure sub out some of my 2-point players for Alaba, Joao Mario and possibly Renato Sanchez, although I'm not sure if he'll play at all. (This last sub would be a gamble, because then I could get 0 points instead of 2 from a player)

Also note that formations don't matter with manual subs (except for the goalkeeper), you can sub in a midfielder for a defender for example.

Matchday 1 is over and here are the totals from our league. Mystery man at the top for first round, tenkei and shura right behind. Another newcomer (Le Team) who could identify themselves.

It was overall a very low scoring first matchday. Almost all of the star forwards failed and in general points were scarce. Hoping things will get a little better as we go on.

--

NOTE: You can now make one free transfer! You can also do more but they'll cost you 4 points each. Finally, you do have a single wildcard transfer but that's your only one for the whole tournament, so think carefully.

So, for this second round of the group stage I did some transfers. Austrian midfield Alaba (7m) had to go, since the team around him turned out to be woefully inferior, making it pretty unlikely he'll be able to score many points. I also got rid of Alderweireld (6.5m), partly because Belgium didn't shine at all, and partly because he was expensive and allowed me to make some interesting trades.

Because the prices are still at the starting stage (they only start changing after the group stage is over) I naturally acquired Payet (8m), who is just simply on fire. France has a real shot to win the whole thing because of him. And he didn't disappoint in Fantasy either, scoring a late goal and giving me 8x2 points as my captain. I'll likely stick with him, with the overall low-scoring euros so far, it'll be hard to successfully pick someone that scores more than 8 points.

I also acquired the Italian defender Giaccherini (5m). Originally I wanted Rami (who went on to score 9 points and has been really active) but I have three Frenchmen already. Italy has some really great options in defence, Giaccherini's low price and the fact that he actually scored a goal in the first round sealed the deal for me. Bonucci was another good option.

I almost went with Alaba-Griezmann for Payet-Giroud instead, and I'm REALLY glad I still stuck with Griezmann. Hopefully Deschamps will let him play some more, as obviously the initial changes to the starting lineup weren't working so well. Once Pogba hit the field things started happening, and Griezmann sealed the deal with his goal.

So I made two transfers, which cost me 4 overall points. I almost went with the wildcard until I realized you can transfer your WHOLE TEAM free of charge with it, instead of just one player. D'oh. Better save that for the knockout rounds.

--

Hoping my reliable Germans and the hyped-up English deliver some points tonight. I saw potential in Alli and Kane, so I haven't given up on them just yet.

Matchday 3 is the final round of the group stage. Therefore the matches start late and are played simultaneously to avoid any hijinks.

This gives us almost 9 hours from this post to make transfers and substitutions. You again have one free transfer, but also, this might be a good time to use the wildcard for a few reasons:

#1. Get a strong, specific team for the final match-ups as you get unlimited transfers again once it's over. Meaning you know who is playing who, and who is likely to crush who or keep a clean sheet during the final round.

#2. Raise the value of your team for the next round, when player prices change. This is a bit risky, since there's no real idea about how much the prices will change, but you might overall make a couple of millions in profit.

This strategy is not without its risks, as the teams might rest their star players and players with yellow cards if they're through to the knockout round already. And if you get unlucky with your picks later and some upsets happen, you might be left with a bunch of 0-point players and not enough free transfers.